Ren'Py Power Vacuum [Ch. 12 Official] [What? Why? Games]

[ScareKing]

The exact same story gets told in every way that matters without some ugly crusty disgusting burn victim showing up every so often and getting near the girls.

In fact that character objectively isn't necessary at all, pretending like a simple rewrite where everything that happens because of the grandfather simply happens because of something else would be impossible is truly weird to me. Such a rewrite would be trivial.

The only reason to defend that character is if you explicitly want him there, want to look at that character and want to see him near the girls. OK, if that's your kink, fair enough, but save it for the NTR path. The character absolutely isn't essential in any other way.

At the very least be honest. Say that you actively want the grandfather there and that you enjoy the scenes when he's on screen and looming over the girls. Because if you don't feel that way, there's no reason for you to defend his existence.



And again, that exact same series of events could unfold without having to shove a puke-inducing turd of a grandfather in my face. In fact, the exact same series of events could unfold without a grandfather at all. Like all you need is 0.000001% imagination and you can come up with another way to explain everything. The ONLY reason to do it THIS SPECIFIC WAY, is if you like having the grandfather around. If you don't like that, you shouldn't be advocating for his character.


There are a million different things that could happen that would fix the payments, or let the family move.

Do you honestly believe that grandfather is the only person in the entire world that has access to those growth hormones and there is no remote possibility of someone getting them from him in some other way even if that were the case? No, of course not.

See above but with chemicals. Or it happens some other way.


I'm so confused, I genuinely don't understand how you think? I'm not even trying to be mean, I'm just genuinely super confused. Do you REALLY believe that these events could only ever happen in this specific way? Have you NEVER seen a story and gone "Nah, this would be much better if they did it this other way instead"?? I... don't understand. It's like you've all assumed that everything written in the story could only ever have been written the way that they are, or not at all. Or what am I missing? Because we all know that fiction can be written in literally any way whatsoever, right? And that any part of a story that's bad can, and in fact SHOULD, just be removed. There's no such thing as a truly bad part of a story that is necessary to have the good parts. No, bad parts are just bad and could simply either be removed or replaced by good parts.

Again, the only reason for anyone to defend the grandfather character is if they genuinely enjoy him being there. To which I say; keep him around in the NTR path. For a pure harem route, which the non-NTR path supposedly is, a pseudo-NTR character lurking around is just truly bad.

Do you really expect someone to rewrite a bunch of scripts and code just because you don't like seeing a guy who doesn't do anything if you play with NTR turned off? This game has no "harem route" or "NTR route", creating this is a lot of work for something very small, and what would be the difference between it and someone else? And as you said, this story is told in every way, so I believe it's best if you skip this game and look for one of those instead.

 

[Mr.Sagar]

Except it's already been confirmed for January if no unexpected delays happen. As much as you wish for it to be delayed, it's going to release early next year.


That's from What If 7.

the game ends when sean hides under the bed…

 

[ScareKing]

the game ends when sean hides under the bed…

Dowload the patch in front page, What Ifs will need that too i guess.

 

[Puma1978]

That's what dev is doing. He is keeping NTR guys happy by giving NTR what ifs every month and at the same time keeping non NTR guys happy by hiding behind the excuse of non canon.

All I'm saying is those small votes should let dev know that there are people who want non NTR what ifs and he shouldn't neglect them since they are also supporting.

I think there are non ntr What ifs already..the one with the fat guy in gym and there is a short one where nothing happens until the "to be continued" message. and one where MC got all girls pregnant without any sex scenes..except short one...but for the last Futa Nonsense Dev went full Alabama with duration, scenes and cgi.

 

[ScareKing]

I think there are non ntr What ifs already..the one with the fat guy in gym and there is a short one where nothing happens until the "to be continued" message. and one where MC got all girls pregnant without any sex scenes..except short one...but for the last Futa Nonsense Dev went full Alabama with duration, scenes and cgi.

"The short one" dont show a message if you use the patch in the front page and you see the whole stuff.

 

[Puma1978]

"The short one" dont show a message if you use the patch in the front page and you see the whole stuff.

oh..thanks for the info...i ll check the patch..

 

[dartred]

Why would want it to be delayed??? Twilight zone.

Anyway, just saying... kinda strange how the dev is working on an alternate universe... practically a different game.... Than just updating the main game.

if i was a conspiracy theorist i might assume different motives.

He's working on the what if on his free time. He explains his schedule here. the TLDR is: He works on the main game on a regular work schedule. Once he clocks out for the day, rather then watch TV or play games, he works on the what if. It's his free time and he is using it to make what ifs.

https://f95zone.to/threads/power-vacuum-what-if-vol-8-ntr-what-why-games.36240/post-9470307

 

[MrJay]

Alright, let me give this a shot:

Besides being intrinsically woven into too many aspects of the plot to be simply removed, Hunter serves as an antagonist. An antagonist is a plot device that challenges the protagonist, Sterling in this case, and creates conflict in the story. Without an antagonist, you have to find some other source of conflict to drive the plot, or else the story is boring.

You don't like Hunter, that's fine because he's designed not to be liked. What if we had a different antagonist: one who was charming and physically attractive to the ladies? He'd be an even bigger threat to the protagonist, as well as triggering to insecure players who self-insert as the protagonist and can't handle the idea of legitimate competition.

Another thing to remember is that Hunter's meddling helps absolve Sterling of moral responsibility for having sex with the girls. If Sterling had to use all of Hunter's tactics himself then he'd just be a monster and an unsympathetic character. But since Sterling is as much a victim as the girls are, he's not a total piece of shit like all the sleep-molesters we see in other games.

Look, if all you want is a fap and Hunter's that much of a boner-killer, I get it. But acting like he can just be removed from the story is like taking Joker out of Batman because you don't like clowns.

Thank you, I know what an antagonist is. I also know that you don't strictly need an antagonist to create conflict, and an antagonist doesn't need to be a character. There are plenty, PLENTY of stories in games here on f95zone that proves that very thing. And, before you say anything, many of them have arguably better stories too. This is not a dig on Power Vacuum, I think it's a fantastic game but the overarching plot is simply not its strongest draw. Which is another reason why a character like the grandfather is so superfluous. The overarching story structure doesn't take itself too seriously anyway, so being anal about having a strict antagonist is misplaced. Sure, for people that are into NTR it makes a lot of sense. For people who are NOT into NTR, all he does is serve as a rotten spot on the apple.

So in so many words, that's a false dichotomy. We don't need either this grandfather or some hottie like Erik to be the antagonist. We strictly don't need one at all, and if we are to have one there are plenty of other ways to do so, *cirumstances* can be an antagonistic driving force. You can have antagonists that are turned into deuteragonists. Or a million different ways to achieve the same thing.

But honestly, that's all moot because rewriting the entire structure of the story is a bigger ask than what I'm advocating for. I'm essentially just asking about never having to lay eyes upon that hideous face, or at least as little as humanly possible, and certainly NEVER see him near any of the girls. I could find that meeting the grandfather once early on, while NOT groping one of the girls, would be at least close to necessary. That could be acceptable to me. But after that, in the non-NTR version, his existence on screen simply cannot be justified. Every single impact he has on the story could easily be presented without showing him at all. Make him an invisible influence, something stories do literally all the time.

It's not *just* that he's a boner killer, although he is that to the extreme, it's that he quite literally leaves a foul taste in my mouth that no amount of good things happening after it can get out. His detriment on the entire experience of playing the game is so great that even after experiencing one of truly amazing sex scenes in this game, I find myself not thinking about how good the sex scene was, but how much I truly loathe that he's part of the same story, and how much that spoils it for me.

Do you really expect someone to rewrite a bunch of scripts and code just because you don't like seeing a guy who doesn't do anything if you play with NTR turned off? This game has no "harem route" or "NTR route", creating this is a lot of work for something very small, and what would be the difference between it and someone else? And as you said, this story is told in every way, so I believe it's best if you skip this game and look for one of those instead.

Rewriting scripts and code isn't necessarily the massive amount of work you make it out to be, and yes, I do expect an advertised NTR-free route to actually be NTR-free. The very blatant threats of NTR is still way too close to NTR in what's supposed to be a non-NTR route.

 

[dartred]

and yes, I do expect an advertised NTR-free route to actually be NTR-free. The very blatant threats of NTR is still way too close to NTR in what's supposed to be a non-NTR route.

aaaaaand this part right here shows how much of a sensitive snow flake you are. Really? the bad mans presence is enough to scare you senseless that your women will be taken, even though they can't be with NTR off. Just his mere presence?

You're just in the minority for everything aren't you? Most people are who don't like NTR acknowledge that Hunter is there and they are fine with it, because it doesn't bother them when they know he's going to lose ever time and come out injured almost every time too.

The story being the weak poink? It's absolutely one of the strongest points if the renders and animations weren't so good, the story would be what's keeping me around. You are asking to take out Hunter to turn this into another generic incest harem.

As a matter of fact, why hate this game so much but come back to it? you hate the story, you hate the NTR. Go play one of the other hundreds of games here and stop whining on this thread. You won't though, you'll be here again tomorrow and cry even though the game won't be changed for you.

Rewriting scripts and code isn't necessarily the massive amount of work you make it out to be

Oh and let me just end with, that's not for you to decide. This game is huge at this point. Rewriting it at this point would takes months. I remember 1 update being delayed by 1 month because the dev didn't like the quality of that releases script so he delayed it himself. That was an earlier chapter. So that's where i'm basing that it would take months to rewrite now.

 

[MorbidViews21]

Why are you spreading known nonsense as a possibility? You can't block the guy on Discord because you know he's a troll but then drop it on here like it's a rumor.

Yo dev, next time you do a what if scenario, Make the girls get fucked by BBC. For ntr its a must!

 

[OnlyWorthyDevsMakeMoney]

Yo dev, next time you do a what if scenario, Make the girls get fucked by BBC. For ntr its a must!

THAT would be a true masterpiece! That would be a NTR worth watching!

 

[JohnTestpilot]

LMAO'd at the references to other games

 

[MrJay]

aaaaaand this part right here shows how much of a sensitive snow flake you are. Really? the bad mans presence is enough to scare you senseless that your women will be taken, even though they can't be with NTR off. Just his mere presence?

You're just in the minority for everything aren't you? Most people are who don't like NTR acknowledge that Hunter is there and they are fine with it, because it doesn't bother them when they know he's going to lose ever time and come out injured almost every time too.

The story being the weak poink? It's absolutely one of the strongest points if the renders and animations weren't so good, the story would be what's keeping me around. You are asking to take out Hunter to turn this into another generic incest harem.

As a matter of fact, why hate this game so much but come back to it? you hate the story, you hate the NTR. Go play one of the other hundreds of games here and stop whining on this thread. You won't though, you'll be here again tomorrow and cry even though the game won't be changed for you.

Oh and let me just end with, that's not for you to decide. This game is huge at this point. Rewriting it at this point would takes months. I remember 1 update being delayed by 1 month because the dev didn't like the quality of that releases script so he delayed it himself. That was an earlier chapter. So that's where i'm basing that it would take months to rewrite now.

If having discerning kinks and knowing very well what I like and don't like is being "a sensitive snow flake", that's on you. Yes, I in fact don't like looking at Hunter. If you do, props to you.

And you have no idea whether I'm in the minority. The absolute vast majority of players haven't even weighed in on the issue. Just because someone likes and plays the game doesn't mean they agree with every single thing that's included in it.

I never said the story was a weak point, that's just your insecurity showing where you interpret something I said in the worst possible light because you're upset. I said it wasn't the games strong point. And it absolutely isn't. If you understand anything about story, you know that it's broken up into many different part. The writing? It's actually really excellent, particularly in the later parts. Many individual story beats and scenes are very interesting. The overarching plot? Nonsensical at the best of times, cobbled together and very jumpy. Is it terrible? No. Is it great? No. But it doesn't need to be great either, first off because it's a porn game, but also because so many other good qualities make up for it. By comparison there are several games just here on f95zone alone that have overarching plots that are actually good enough that they could be made into (R-rated) movies of notable quality. This absolutely couldn't. But that doesn't mean those games are overall better, they're just better in one particular area.

And again, I never said I hated the story. And yes, I'll keep coming back to this game because, unsurprisingly, it's overall very good, like I've already explained. It's not a difficult concept that the good can outweigh the bad, which doesn't make the bad any less noteworthy. And yes I'll "complain", which is to say I'll offer feedback based on my experiences and how I think this particular aspect of the game could be handled better, which is one of the purposes of this forum. If anything, the more pointless and off-topic activity is to try and tell others that they should feel bad for sharing their opinions and that they should go away for doing so, but you don't really hear me complaining. And no, the game very well might not change. That doesn't mean sharing my opinion is somehow wrong, and that's all I'm doing.

As for a rewrite, you should first off notice I specifically wrote that it doesn't *necessarily* take that long. And, the reason it might not take that long is that it would only concern the relatively few scenes that Hunter is in, and no new art would need to be created for it, which is often a majority of development time in these games. Also, most of the dialogue would stay largely the same, just delivered in a slightly different manner depending on how the developer would choose to approach the task.

 

[FoolishFool0]

The non-NTR path should completely delete the grandfather from the game. He's completely non-essential to the game and just ruins the rest of the content by appearing every so often. As a pure harem game experience, it's objectively detrimental to have a character like that.

That or just let us murder him already. As soon as he touched one of the girls he should've been dogmeat.

EXCUSE ME, Hunter is ESSENTIAL to the plot and the themes of this game, what the fuck do you mean he's NON-ESSENTIAL, dude is literally the fucking engine that gets the story running, he is quintessential to the backstory of the MC's father being abusive, he's needed to implement those mechanics and ploys that other, lesser stories would saddle the MC with thus ruining his good image like this very fucking What If underlined with the Big Brother segment, we need a fucking VILLAIN so the plot can continue so the plot can fucking start so the plot can fucking end, otherwise this is just a bunch of disconnected sequences with no fucking correlation between each other.

You remove Hunter from the equation the MC isn't fucking ANYONE, we need him to spike the food build the air conditioning and act as a negative, encroaching, active figure to spur the passive, positive, respectful MC into action, we don't have that we don't have a fucking story we don't have a fucking Harem and we don't have fucking Porn.

"Remove the grandfather from the game" yeah and let's remove fucking Sauron from the Lord of the Rings too while we're at it let's read a 5000 pages long treaty on Hobbit Husbandry at that point, no stakes, no story, no interactions, nothing, just boring, motionless, trite grey slob you've been seeing A DIME A DOZEN.

I fucking swear, let's destroy the central confict of this story, the nerve of some people.

 

[pigg]

EXCUSE ME, Hunter is ESSENTIAL to the plot and the themes of this game, what the fuck do you mean he's NON-ESSENTIAL, dude is literally the fucking engine that gets the story running, he is quintessential to the backstory of the MC's father being abusive, he's needed to implement those mechanics and ploys that other, lesser stories would saddle the MC with thus ruining his good image like this very fucking What If underlined with the Big Brother segment, we need a fucking VILLAIN so the plot can continue so the plot can fucking start so the plot can fucking end, otherwise this is just a bunch of disconnected sequences with no fucking correlation between each other.

You remove Hunter from the equation the MC isn't fucking ANYONE, we need him to spike the food build the air conditioning and act as a negative, encroaching, active figure to spur the passive, positive, respectful MC into action, we don't have that we don't have a fucking story we don't have a fucking Harem and we don't have fucking Porn.

"Remove the grandfather from the game" yeah and let's remove fucking Sauron from the Lord of the Rings too while we're at it let's read a 5000 pages long treaty on Hobbit Husbandry at that point, no stakes, no story, no interactions, nothing, just boring, motionless, trite grey slob you've been seeing A DIME A DOZEN.

I fucking swear, let's destroy the central confict of this story, the nerve of some people.

I can't wait for the plot-arc where he spawns all the of the decayed from Desert Stalker.

 

[FoolishFool0]

Alright, let me give this a shot:

Besides being intrinsically woven into too many aspects of the plot to be simply removed, Hunter serves as an antagonist. An antagonist is a plot device that challenges the protagonist, Sterling in this case, and creates conflict in the story. Without an antagonist, you have to find some other source of conflict to drive the plot, or else the story is boring.

You don't like Hunter, that's fine because he's designed not to be liked. What if we had a different antagonist: one who was charming and physically attractive to the ladies? He'd be an even bigger threat to the protagonist, as well as triggering to insecure players who self-insert as the protagonist and can't handle the idea of legitimate competition.

Another thing to remember is that Hunter's meddling helps absolve Sterling of moral responsibility for having sex with the girls. If Sterling had to use all of Hunter's tactics himself then he'd just be a monster and an unsympathetic character. But since Sterling is as much a victim as the girls are, he's not a total piece of shit like all the sleep-molesters we see in other games.

Look, if all you want is a fap and Hunter's that much of a boner-killer, I get it. But acting like he can just be removed from the story is like taking Joker out of Batman because you don't like clowns.

Exactly, Hunter is just your classic House Game protagonist stripped of all pretenses and masks, the ugly truth staring the player straight in the eyes, that someone who would cheat, swindle, spy and drug his loved ones for cheap, easy sex would be nothing short of a monster, and his existence is ESSENTIAL to hammer this point across, much like Kevin's depression leading him to also become your classic House Game "protagonist" does.

 

[Fayn Arawn]

Thank you, I know what an antagonist is. I also know that you don't strictly need an antagonist to create conflict, and an antagonist doesn't need to be a character. There are plenty, PLENTY of stories in games here on f95zone that proves that very thing. And, before you say anything, many of them have arguably better stories too. This is not a dig on Power Vacuum, I think it's a fantastic game but the overarching plot is simply not its strongest draw. Which is another reason why a character like the grandfather is so superfluous. The overarching story structure doesn't take itself too seriously anyway, so being anal about having a strict antagonist is misplaced. Sure, for people that are into NTR it makes a lot of sense. For people who are NOT into NTR, all he does is serve as a rotten spot on the apple.

So in so many words, that's a false dichotomy. We don't need either this grandfather or some hottie like Erik to be the antagonist. We strictly don't need one at all, and if we are to have one there are plenty of other ways to do so, *cirumstances* can be an antagonistic driving force. You can have antagonists that are turned into deuteragonists. Or a million different ways to achieve the same thing.

But honestly, that's all moot because rewriting the entire structure of the story is a bigger ask than what I'm advocating for. I'm essentially just asking about never having to lay eyes upon that hideous face, or at least as little as humanly possible, and certainly NEVER see him near any of the girls. I could find that meeting the grandfather once early on, while NOT groping one of the girls, would be at least close to necessary. That could be acceptable to me. But after that, in the non-NTR version, his existence on screen simply cannot be justified. Every single impact he has on the story could easily be presented without showing him at all. Make him an invisible influence, something stories do literally all the time.

It's not *just* that he's a boner killer, although he is that to the extreme, it's that he quite literally leaves a foul taste in my mouth that no amount of good things happening after it can get out. His detriment on the entire experience of playing the game is so great that even after experiencing one of truly amazing sex scenes in this game, I find myself not thinking about how good the sex scene was, but how much I truly loathe that he's part of the same story, and how much that spoils it for me.



Rewriting scripts and code isn't necessarily the massive amount of work you make it out to be, and yes, I do expect an advertised NTR-free route to actually be NTR-free. The very blatant threats of NTR is still way too close to NTR in what's supposed to be a non-NTR route.

Speaking of false dichotomies, you've repeatedly suggested that everyone who doesn't hate Hunter like you do must love him. Perhaps we're simply not bothered by him?

I hear what you're saying. You don't want to see Hunter because he's so repulsive to you, that's a valid point of view. But then you try to construct a logic-based argument to support your subjective opinion, and this is where I have to disagree. Of course there are an infinite number of alternative ways this game could be made, but then it wouldn't be this game. Whether or not it'd be easy to create, and whether or not it would fundamentally alter the experience, in the end what you're asking for is a different game. It reminds me of the argument that FromSoftware should make an Easy Mode; they could, and some people would appreciate it, but then they're not experiencing what the creator intended.

 

[SHER!FF]

What?Why?Games, your line "Cong-O's, the number one third world breakfast cereal" made me spew whiskey all over my monitor. It got into my nose! 114 proof whiskey! I'm still cleaning my monitor, clearing the napalm from my sinuses and laughing like a maniac. Asshole. Keep it up. There's no better humor in this weird world than your game.

 

[rhcp725]

So a couple things i want to tackle here.

In regards to the vanilla vs ntr complaints coming from the vanilla side. I can understand their frustration because though the ntr scenes are in the minority the sheer size of the ntr scene continues to grow. If you look at the chapter 10 bad end with Ophelia, Hunter gets head, goes down on her, does multiple positions and finally creampies. That's much longer than most of the Sterling vanilla scenes. It can leave the pro vanilla feeling cheated because though numerous the scenes feel much shorter.

When you look at the more recent what ifs what used to be shorter mini scenes continue to grow in length and to be fair in quality. Look at everything from 4 on which are all ntr scenes.

4- you get a full length Hunter Brenna scene, plus the guide and Catherine also fucking and Ophelia sucking dick.

5- you get an Aliza solo scene, an Amber solo scene and a threesome.

6- escalating scenes with Hunter and Breanna that end with a fully in-depth scene to close it out.

7- you get a nobody that gets multiple scenes with Catherine, Ophelia, Brenna and a full blown orgy at the end.

8- Ophelia literally fucks every fuckable character in game (minus Rebecca if memory is correct) then moved on to characters from 3 other VNs. So that's 13 different females she gets.

The divide between ntr and vanilla content which used to be 90-10 is no longer that. So for the vanilla players to feel cheated isn't that unfair considering they have to wait 6 months in-between getting anything.

My suggestion to help improve on this is for WWG to tweak his rules on What Ifs. Based on the scale that they have grown to why can't we have scenarios to cater to both. Would it hurt there was one less ntr scene and a vanilla scene. Look at the most recent what if. He could have given the vanilla crowd the Aliza scene without interruption and the vanilla fans would have gotten something for them to help with the development time wait. Make the what ifs like the bad end scenes in game where a simple choice gives either the vanilla or the ntr and keep everyone happy.

I'm not trying to pick sides here based on liking both types on content. Just trying to make a rational explanation for the vanilla players feelings without being overly confrontational.

 

[Fayn Arawn]

So a couple things i want to tackle here.

In regards to the vanilla vs ntr complaints coming from the vanilla side. I can understand their frustration because though the ntr scenes are in the minority the sheer size of the ntr scene continues to grow. If you look at the chapter 10 bad end with Ophelia, Hunter gets head, goes down on her, does multiple positions and finally creampies. That's much longer than most of the Sterling vanilla scenes. It can leave the pro vanilla feeling cheated because though numerous the scenes feel much shorter.

When you look at the more recent what ifs what used to be shorter mini scenes continue to grow in length and to be fair in quality. Look at everything from 4 on which are all ntr scenes.

4- you get a full length Hunter Brenna scene, plus the guide and Catherine also fucking and Ophelia sucking dick.

5- you get an Aliza solo scene, an Amber solo scene and a threesome.

6- escalating scenes with Hunter and Breanna that end with a fully in-depth scene to close it out.

7- you get a nobody that gets multiple scenes with Catherine, Ophelia, Brenna and a full blown orgy at the end.

8- Ophelia literally fucks every fuckable character in game (minus Rebecca if memory is correct) then moved on to characters from 3 other VNs. So that's 13 different females she gets.

The divide between ntr and vanilla content which used to be 90-10 is no longer that. So for the vanilla players to feel cheated isn't that unfair considering they have to wait 6 months in-between getting anything.

My suggestion to help improve on this is for WWG to tweak his rules on What Ifs. Based on the scale that they have grown to why can't we have scenarios to cater to both. Would it hurt there was one less ntr scene and a vanilla scene. Look at the most recent what if. He could have given the vanilla crowd the Aliza scene without interruption and the vanilla fans would have gotten something for them to help with the development time wait. Make the what ifs like the bad end scenes in game where a simple choice gives either the vanilla or the ntr and keep everyone happy.

I'm not trying to pick sides here based on liking both types on content. Just trying to make a rational explanation for the vanilla players feelings without being overly confrontational.

Your summary is pretty accurate. Hunter's scene with Ophelia was epic, but it was intended to satisfy a certain contingent of fans who had been waiting to see it. Hunter (usually) gets the women first, and a short scene with Ophelia would've been a disappointment to those fans. I'm just hoping that Sterling's eventual scene with Ophelia is even more epic, and then maybe people can calm down a bit.

One thing I didn't see you mention is that while the What Ifs have gotten larger, their releases have also been pushed further apart (much like the main game). It's not apples-to-apples comparing all of the What Ifs.

Anyway, I'm all for a compromise, but I feel like your suggestion would put undue burden on the dev, as well as dilute the concept suggested by the winner of the poll. If necessary (meaning the supporters want it), alternating NTR and vanilla What Ifs seems much more viable.